September 3^rd—happy Labor Day!

       The story so far…        

A day or two before I left for Florida, I was in the car with my fine husband telling me about a friend who, upon hearing about what I was about to do, passed along a bucketful of excited compliments.

       This was not a unique response. I’d been feted and gifted and praised way beyond what I thought was deserved. (That includes the heartwarming, very moving, comments so many people wrote after the first blog. Thank you all, but really…read on)And so I said, “I’m not going to Botswana or Darfur or Afghanistan. I didn’t join Doctors Without Borders. I’m going to Florida, to a nice house, to work for President Obama. People are overreacting.”

       And my fine husband said, “Don’t you understand why everybody’s so excited that you’re doing this? It’s because you’re so old!”

       What is there to say about that? I’ll stick with my initial stunned silence for fear he might be right.

A second interesting moment happened at five a.m. this past Friday morning, again with my fine husband at the wheel and Sunny-the-dog in the back seat, all of us driving in the dark to the San Francisco Airport. That’s when I had “that moment.”

Months after hearing about this, talking about this, thinking about this, applying to do this, saying I would maybe do this, then saying I would indeed do it—I was en route to the airport which meant: I was actually doing this and what on earth had I been thinking?

       I felt trapped in a moralistic children’s tale: I’d shot off my mouth—and why? Because it sounded so good? Was it all about telling a good story? Worse, I’d told it for so long and to so many people that now I had no options. There was no turning back.

 There’s a saying by Thornton Wilder that I’ve loved for a long time, perhaps because until now, it was theoretical, academic. It says, “The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself, 'Oh, now I’ve got myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home.' And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure."

       So there I was, definitely in the “I have got myself into an awful mess” phase and yearning to put the car in reverse and go home.

       But since I couldn’t, (the humiliation! the shame!) here I am, in Pinellas County, Florida, living with a lovely couple and two cute dogs, exhausted and exhilarated.

Friday evening my fantastic sister-in-law and brother-in-law who live in Orlando, met me at the Tampa Airport, and after we went out to dinner, they gave me one of their cars to use the entire ten weeks I’m here, an incredible gift. But beyond that, unless they, too, decide to chuck everything familiar and leap into the unknown, I’m sure they will never understand what it felt like to see a friendly face after my pre-dawn shakes.

       And conquering one of my biggest fears—getting lost in a strange city at night—I made my way with only a few lamentable mistakes, like driving on the wrong side of a road once…Not entirely my fault. The GPS insists on saying “make a slight right” when it means: turn right. Is there a way to help the GPS express itself with more precision? Anyway, I reached Palm Harbor near ten p.m. with enough time to say hello, unpack and pass out—and then wake up early to go to nine hours of training back in Tampa.

       There were several counties’ worth of new fellows of all ages, skin colors, sexual orientation, physical wellness and disability, and all passionate about re-electing the President. It is so thrilling to feel oneself suddenly become part of that kind of community that all my fears of falling asleep during the sessions were forgotten.We each had to briefly tell what had brought us there. There were tales of medical disasters and lives being saved by Affordable Care. There were students managing to go to college on Pell grants. A lesbian professor, now “under employed” married to her partner in California but unable to share her health insurance here…There were people who came from Massachusetts to make sure they never again had Romney as their leader. One of my favorite moments was from an extroverted, high-energy black man who said in a rich boom: “I’m here because Romney boils my grits!”

       The Field Organizers and staff were incredibly organized and moved through those many hours with speed and precision talking about goals and how to achieve them and techniques and information and, and, and… I hate talking about “energy” but you could have run New York for days on what they projected. Energy and urgency (as in the countdown to election day) and smarts and I realized I was intensely glad that I was a part of something this important. I’m one small pebble in an enormous mosaic, but it’s great being a piece of the picture.

       It appears that Florida is even more important than the label “swing state” implies. This state could guarantee a win and furthermore, my county, which is “purple” is intensely important to that win. (It is possible that the staff said something akin to that in every training session in every county in the U.S. yesterday, but all I can say is—my trainers convinced me that I am in the very heart of the heart of this election battle.)

       The Democrats in this part of Florida, but they apparently keep a low profile. A person who was registering new voters remarked that the Republicans said their party affiliation. Democrats whispered it.

       My hostess suggested that I remove the Obama-Biden sticker from my sister-in-law’s car lest the car be keyed or worse . She also mentioned the possibility of my being shot. Her husband seemed to think that was extreme. I have removed the sticker.

       Right now, I’m home from getting trained and certified to do voter registration, and tomorrow, (Labor Day is not a holiday for them) I’m going into the office to meet my Field Organizer and plan out the week. So far, he’s only said that I’m going to work hard. I have no idea what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be doing it, but I’m looking forward to it, even if I am so old!

      

One more thing: In full disclosure I should disclose (fully) that all the new volunteer fellows signed non-disclosure agreements, and I understand completely. Not that I’ll know strategy or inside gossip but—if I do, I’m not sharing it till after the election. Be forwarned--the  adventures of a Very Old Organizer and Confused Driver may well become—or already be--the world’s most boring blog.

       Meantime, three days into this adventure, I  miss my loves but am glad I’m not sitting home, wishing I were doing something—and I’ll sign off the way my young Field Organizer does each time,

       Fired Up!  -- Judy  

p.s. I'm sorry the font is so huge and it might sound as if I'm shouting. I don't know how to fix it--blogging is as new and semi-terrifying as any other part of this adventure! But next time, smaller font, I promise.